Nintendo 'knew games caused seizures'

Nintendo faces allegations that a number of its video games trigger epileptic seizures in some children.

The company, based in Tokyo, is also accused of knowing about the problem and choosing not to remove the provocative flashing sequences from the games.

The claims are to be aired by a company insider on BBC3's Outrageous Fortunes tomorrow.

The video-game industry, unlike television, is not governed by regulations concerning the frequency of flashing lights and patterns on the screen. But the BBC programme claims a number of Nintendo games fall short of TV industry standards.

A Nintendo spokeswoman said: 'The notion that Nintendo would knowingly include in its games material that it knew could cause seizures is ridiculous. There is nothing more important to us than the health and wellbeing of our players.'

She added: 'We are aware of the Independent Television Commission guidelines for broadcast television. However, in the absence of established guidelines for video games, Nintendo voluntarily prepared and implemented its own internal guidelines for game design and development in 1988.

'We began including a warning about seizures with our games in the UK in 1993. We were the first video-game company to provide such warnings.'

Nintendo is behind arcade favourites such as Super Mario and Pokemon, although neither of those games is understood to feature in the allegations relating to epilepsy.